1. Field
This disclosure is generally related to facilitating secure communication between two devices. More specifically, this disclosure is related to a method and system for automated cover message generation.
2. Related Art
The relentless growth of the Internet has brought with it an ever increase demand for applications that facilitate to conduct various types of transactions online. Secure communications, among other things, are becoming progressively important to service providers. Over the past few decades, a number of systems for delivering secure message over unsecured channels have been developed. For example, there exist a number of public key infrastructure (PKI) systems that can issue digital certificates which facilitate two communicating entities to encrypt their messages.
Simply encrypting messages, however, might not be sufficient. For example, even when messages (such as emails) are encrypted between two communicating entities, the cipher text is often transmitted over an open, unsecured channel, and the sending and receiving parties' identities are also known to the public. Such information can be used by a malicious user to decrypt the cipher text (for example, by using brute-force dictionary-based cracking methods).
In many situations it is desirable to obscure secure communications between a sender and a recipient with a cover message. Traditionally, the cover message has been manually generated, typically by the sender or on the sender's behalf. The cover message might be based on a template or form, with a customized salutation or address specific to the recipient. The manual process is time-consuming and may require personal knowledge by the sender of context relevant to the recipient for the cover message to appear personal. Other automated cover-message generation methods are often impersonal and the messages generated are easy to spot as form or bulk cover messages.